It was bad enough when the US Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics ("BLS") changed their publicized monthly unemployment rate to reflect their "U.3" index back in the mid-1990's. Up until then, the monthly jobless rate was based upon their much more accurate "U.6" index rate, which even today, is running at just under
twice the U.3 rate. (Early on Friday, the BLS' reported their April numbers for U.3 at 8.9%; the U.6 rate inched up to 15.8%--that's approximately one in every six Americans, if you want to simplify this sad picture of reality.)
Here's the skinny from Shadow Stats on all of this:
--The actual net number of unemployed for April reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today was 605,000, not 539,000, since they added 66,000 more to the jobless roll for March in their typically quiet (and buried at the end of their monthly releases) 'downward revisions for the previous month's numbers.'
--This downward revision of the previous month's numbers has occurred now for seven consecutive months. Also, over the past year, the government has "adjusted" previous month's unemployment numbers with a "concurrent seasonal factor bias" which
subtracted, on average, more than 100,000 job losses from monthly government totals, on a per-month basis, for each of the past 12 months. Put another way, more than 1,200,000 unemployed were removed from BLS' calculations over the past year due to "concurrent seasonal factor bias."
And, here's my vote for today's most shocking factual comment, also from John Williams:
The unadjusted annual decline in April payrolls was the worst since July 1958. At the current pace of deepening annual decline, by the June 2009 employment report (due for release in July), the annual percentage contraction in payrolls will be the most severe since the production shutdown following World War II.
(NOTE: No link is provided for this "Flash Update" from Shadow Stats, since access to it is available via paid subscription only.)
Williams' final call on the real unemployment nos. for April:
Based on the better-quality underlying series discussed below ... the April jobs loss should have exceeded 750,000. It still may end up reflecting such a loss in subsequent revisions.
But, economist Gonzalo Lira, over at Naked Capitalism tonight, provides us with even more, common sense insight into today's bogus, government unemployment report.
Ruminations on the Latest Unemployment Figures from the Bureau of Lies and Statistics
Gonzalo Lira
NakedCapitalism.com
May 8, 2009
First, the "seasonal adjustment"...They're knocking off ±65,000 workers for no clearly discernible reason.
Second, notice that the Census Bureau hired 60,000 people last month. Those workers (by definition) are temporary, and are a net cost to the economy, as they will not be adding marginal utility to any economic sector, the census being merely a social expenditure.
Those two items alone turn 530,000 new unemployed into 655,000.
Lira, like Williams, also cites the "previous month's revisions" game that the Labor Department's been playing with the public:
Now notice how, once again, previous months' figures have been readjusted. This time, the readjustments weren't so bad--a mere 30,000 more unemployed in February, turning that month's official totals to 681,000, and another 30,000 for March, making that month's official number 699,000, just shy of that magic 700,000 monthly number (BTW, remember back in the good old days when 300,000 monthly unemployed was "shocking"?)
--SNIP--
I will bet one double Quarter Pounder with cheese and bacon that next month, the revisions of the April numbers will be on the order of an additional 85,000 unemployed. My guess is that, discounting the Census Bureau hirings, April saw 680,000 newly unemployed workers.
Economist Lira points to May and June numbers, when two million new college grads can't find steady work. Mr. Lira doesn't even bring up the upcoming six-figure job losses certain to occur throughout the auto industry during that time.
Perhaps, from an even bigger-picture standpoint, I'd like to leave you with one last thought: With such distorted/perverse numbers creating irrational upswings in the stock markets now, as well, isn't all of this just more "irrational exuberance?"